MEXICO CITY — The three-story school structure had pancaked into a pile of concrete slabs. The bodies of 21 children and four adults had been pulled out. But still sounds came from the collapsed structure on Wednesday — and finally a survivor was located.

Rescue workers search for people trapped inside a collapsed building in the Del Valle area of Mexico City, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2017. Mexicans across the city are digging through collapsed buildings, trying to save people trapped in debris under schools, homes and businesses, toppled by a 7.1 earthquake that killed more than 200 people. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Rescue workers rest atop a toppled gate and amid debris as others continue the search and rescue efforts at the Enrique Rebsamen school that collapsed after an earthquake in Mexico City, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2017. One of the most desperate rescue efforts was at this school, where a wing of the three-story building collapsed into a massive pancake of concrete slabs. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Rescue workers search for children trapped inside the collapsed Enrique Rebsamen school in Mexico City, Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017. The earthquake stunned central Mexico, killing more than 100 people as buildings collapsed in plumes of dust. (AP Photo/Carlos Cisneros)

Volunteers and rescue workers search for children trapped inside at the collapsed Enrique Rebsamen school in Mexico City, Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017. The 7.1 earthquake stunned central Mexico, killing more than 100 people as buildings collapsed in plumes of dust as rescue efforts took place at the school in southern Mexico City, where a wing of the three-story building collapsed into a massive pancake of concrete floor slabs killing scores of students. (AP Photo/Gerardo Carrillo)

First responders work on removing the rubble of a collapsed building looking for survivors trapped underneath, after a 7.1 earthquake in Mexico City, Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017. The earthquake stunned central Mexico, killing more than 100 people as buildings collapsed in plumes of dust. (AP Photo/Gustavo Martinez Contreras)

Rescue workers search for children trapped inside the collapsed Enrique Rebsamen school in Mexico City, Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017. The earthquake stunned central Mexico, killing more than 100 people as buildings collapsed in plumes of dust. (AP Photo/Carlos Cisneros)

A car lays crushed under the collapsed Enrique Rebsamen school in Mexico City, Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2017. The earthquake stunned central Mexico, killing more than 100 people as buildings collapsed in plumes of dust. (AP Photo/Carlos Cisneros)

Rescuers, firefighters, policemen, soldiers and volunteers continue removing with the help of searchlights the rubble and debris from a flattened building in search of survivors after a powerful quake in Mexico City on September 19, 2017. A devastating quake in Mexico on Tuesday killed more than 100 people, according to official tallies, with a preliminary 30 deaths recorded in the capital where rescue efforts were still going on. / AFP PHOTO / MARIO VAZQUEZ (Photo credit should read MARIO VAZQUEZ/AFP/Getty Images)

Rescuers were struggling to free a girl who had been one of many trapped under the rubble of a Mexico City school that collapsed due to yesterday’s 7.1 magnitude earthquake.

Images broadcast by Mexican media showed helmeted workers working at the debris at the Enrique Rebsamen school.

Foro TV reported that rescuers spotted the child and shouted to her to move her hand if she could hear them, and she did. A search dog subsequently entered the wreckage and confirmed she was alive. Several other children were rescued shortly after the quake.

It was a ray of hope after a grim night, as rescuers dug at the pile of rubble and soldiers wedged in wooden beams to try to prevent it from crumbling further.

Then a group of them decided to head in.

Pedro Serrano, a 29-year-old doctor, was one of the ordinary Mexicans who had volunteered to join the rescue effort. He crawled into a crevice amid the tottering pile.

“We dug holes, then crawled in on our bellies,” Serrano said.

With barely room to move, he wriggled deeper into the wrecked school.

“We managed to get into a collapsed classroom. We saw some chairs and wooden tables,” Serrano said. “The next thing we saw was a leg, and then we started to move rubble and we found a girl and two adults — a woman and a man.”

None of them was alive.

The rescuers left them there. There was no way to get them out.

Outside the school gates, rumors ran through the crowd of anxious parents that two families had received Whatsapp messages from girls trapped inside. Nobody could say for sure whether it was true.

Asked if there was hope, Serrano looked weary but said workers were still trying.

“We can hear small noises,” he said. “We don’t know if they’re coming from above or below — from the walls above (crumbling), or from someone below calling for help.”

The work continued through the night, as pickup trucks loaded with volunteer rescuers with shovels and pickaxes sped through the darkened streets of the capital.

Occasionally, searchers at the school would ask for silence so they could listen for signs of life.

The volunteers stopped passing wooden shoring beams and buckets of rubble and became quiet.

Silently, they held their fists in the air in a gesture of hope, solidarity and resilience.

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